


Tundra

by messjon



Category: Pierce the Veil
Genre: Drabble, M/M, Perrentes - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-25
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-02-26 23:27:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2670347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/messjon/pseuds/messjon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony loved his girlfriend, and it was okay.</p>
<p>Mike didn't love his girlfriend, and it was okay, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

There were nights when there was something special in the air—nights where the souls of hundreds of people poured into the atmosphere and drifted onstage and pried their way down the throats of the people who drew them out. It was medication: a drug, but not in the sense that it'd fuck anyone over. It was more of a remedy. On a tour bus, you never quite sleep. There's always bumping around and the occasional honk of a car horn outside that rips you from the almost-dream you were having; there's the snoring of the person above you or below you, or there's the way you have to brace yourself against the wall when whoever's driving makes a turn at anything as severe as a ninety-degree angle. Even when the bus is parked for the night, there are outside noises and inside noises and the knowledge that you're not in a bed; you're in a cupboard. Insomnia is passed around like a cheap joint. There were only two things that made this less shitty: hotel rooms and those nights where everyone bleeds together into one collective being and feeds into whoever has drumsticks in his hands or a guitar strap around his neck.

Tony loved his girlfriend, but there were nights when he didn't. That was okay, because she wasn't around for them. He was a bit of a selfish creature. It was something he had long-since come to accept; something he learned to hide at the right times and let loose whenever he could. To him, it was okay for him to take what he wanted as long as it didn't hurt anybody. Some things, he took, and they would hurt if he didn't do his damndest to keep them inside his lungs. Secrets. Tony kept secrets. He did things he shouldn't; he said things he shouldn't. Then, when it was all over, he folded them up and swallowed them and they stayed locked up in his throat until it was time to indulge again. It felt innocent, really. Does morality even exist if there's no one to judge it? Tony didn't think so. Only he knew what he wanted. It was okay if he kept that to himself, because he really did love her, even if only for his own selfish reasons, like the way she made him feel okay.

Tony loved his girlfriend, and it was okay.

Mike didn't love his girlfriend, and it was okay, too.


	2. Chapter 2

On those nights—the ones where energy was consumed—Mike liked to celebrate. It was different than most nights. Most nights, he drank to feel things, because he knew what he was supposed to feel and he couldn't quite figure out why he didn't feel anything, so he asked the chemicals what they thought about it and they helped him smile, even if they gave him a headache in the morning. But some nights, Mike felt things. The screams bounced off of his drums and perched in the rafters until they decided they were ready for him, and they slipped inside. They filled Mike with something all on their own. He knew it had nothing to do with him; the screams got into Vic and Jaime and even Tony on those nights. That didn't mean he couldn't love them and crave them and beg to a God he doubted half the time that he wouldn't have to sit through too many more shows before the screams filled him again. The screams. The souls. They made him feel things. He really, fucking needed that.

And when he got it, he would be so overjoyed that he called on the chemicals to amplify everything, because hell, you can't have too much of a good thing, right? Celebrating. He would celebrate that he got through another four shows, or another five shows, or just another six nights where he lied quietly in bed with an idle bottle of whiskey wondering why the hell he felt like he was in limbo. The screams saved him. The souls saved him. So he fed them.

Mike was all limbs and immature jokes. He would almost look gawky if it weren't for the overwhelming confidence that was so dense in his every pore that it seeped through his skin and hung in the air around him. His knobby knees and spidery arms, instead of being ungainly, were just another part of the perfect, self-assured Mike Fuentes. And as long as he wasn't by himself, he was alright. As long as he wasn't by himself, he could experience a dull buzz of impudence that either came off as arrogant or alluring to other people. Sometimes, he really believed it. He could go awhile believing it until he was forced to simmer in a quiet room by himself and wonder what the hell the point was.

Alcohol made Mike do strange things.

Alcohol made Tony do strange things.


	3. Chapter 3

It was the cosmic expanse of blank canvas in Tony's mind that set the mood. It wasn't blank in the sense that he was stupid or brainless. He was rather intelligent, really. It was that he was full of a lot of thoughts and impulses, but not a lot of emotions. It was survival. It was pretty easy for him to function without guilt or shame or anger or sadness. It was pretty hard for him to function  _with_  happiness or enthusiasm or joy or content. That was the downside, but he was too programmed to really give a fuck.

Tony felt like he had a lot of open space inside him, with strange splotches of red and yellow but most of it gray. That was when it wasn't frozen over. It was frozen over a lot.

There were only a few things he needed. For one, he couldn't stay inside too long or he would get restless. People would suck in oxygen and expel carbon dioxide and eventually he felt like he was suffocating in peoples' used up breath. He needed, too, to get the notes out of his fingers. Sometimes, he would strum and pluck viciously until his skin split and bled. It was better than keeping the notes inside. It was like an addiction, but instead of letting the substance inside him to rewire his brain for awhile, he'd let part of himself out. A cleansing. Usually, on tour, it was pretty easy to keep these things under control. Sometimes it wasn't, but mostly it was.

Tony needed for someone to touch him; to love him. He needed to feel like he wasn't a monster, like he wasn't a robot, and she gave him that. He really, really loved her for it. He loved her because she knew how to draw things out of him and play with them; she knew how to stir up a smile, even a laugh, whenever she wanted to. God, he loved her. She made him feel like a real person, and he needed that to stay sane. He loved her because she loved him.

Tony didn't talk to his girlfriend on tour, but he still needed to say 'I love you,' so he said it to someone else. It was okay. He didn't mean it. Mike didn’t mean it either. It was just something they said sometimes; a joke, shared between them after they shared their flesh. Tony did mean it in the sense that Mike was an important person in his life, and he certainly wouldn't want him dead, he would just prefer to fuck his girlfriend over him. Mike knew that. He said it too, because it was something that felt good to say. It'd kill him if he ever lost Tony. They said it, and they meant it, but they didn't mean it.

Mike really didn't mean it.


	4. Chapter 4

Maybe Mike meant it.

Maybe he liked his girl's flesh and he liked the sound of her voice but it only went so far as not minding who she was. He didn't mind her habits. He didn't mind her inexorable thrill when she tried something new. He didn't mind that she could get needy in the mornings. He didn't mind, but that wasn't enough.

He wished he could say he didn't mind Tony's snoring or the way he got ceaselessly silent when trying to remember something. He didn't want to mind how his friend always nicked his pinky on the highest E-string of the black guitar and never failed to complain even though it had happened a billion times. He didn't want to mind that his hair fell in his face when he got embarrassed or that he would only turn up the left corner of his mouth when he wasn't supposed to be smiling. Tony would occasionally mutter something offhand in his sleep, like what temperature to cook a pizza at. He always managed to lose only one shoe at a time, get so frustrated until he found it somewhere it shouldn't be like under his pillow or in a cupboard. Mike didn't want to mind these things, but he minded. He fucking loved them.

And he was pretty good at forgetting, at least until he got into the thrill of performing and decided to feed it with alcohol. Celebrating was bad for Mike, because there was only one thing he really wanted to do when celebrating, and that was find Tony and get as close as two humans can get. Tony was vaguely aware that Mike liked it a little too much. Tony was vaguely aware that he should give a fuck. Tony was vaguely aware that he was leading Mike on and letting him fuck himself over and he was vaguely aware that they shouldn't be sleeping together in the first place.

Tony tried to care. Tony didn't try hard enough.


	5. Chapter 5

There was a lot of alcohol and a lot of cheering and a lot of smiling and laughing at a show well done. There was a lot of loud music and bright lights and the chime of glasses knocking against each other. People looked different at a party; they became detached from the humility of existing simply as cells grown from other cells like any other animal. At a party, humans became invincible. Humans became gods.

There was Tony taking Mike's hand and leading him into a back room and laughing because the alcohol tickled his insides. There was Mike getting filled with joy because he was just about to find Tony so they could get reacquainted; after all, it had been too long. Almost a month. It was too risky to bring girls back to the bus or even sneak away at parties because it looked suspicious and they didn't want to hurt their own girls. It was fine if two friends wanted to duck out to do god-knows-what. Hell, it was a party. They were just friends.

There was flesh. Lots of flesh.Thumping and thrusting, against the wall, against the floor. It was a secret pleasure of Tony's to be used, violated; he liked to be the bitch. Mike would laugh and call him that. It would always be quick; they just wanted to get off. Tony always came first. Mike made sure of that. He would be quick to follow, of course, and then Tony would say 'I love you bro,' and Mike would pant an 'I love you too' that was always a little bit too enthusiastic. It was always a little bit too heartfelt. It didn't matter. They were drunk. Mike wasn't stupid; he knew where they stood.

But he always found himself hopelessly hanging off of Tony's every word.

Every goddamn word.


	6. Chapter 6

It hurt to wake up on a bus with a hangover. Alcohol was cruel. It was that friend you let in at 2 A.M. who insisted that they had nowhere else to go, and they said smoke with me, and you said we should be asleep, and they said it was okay to indulge every once in awhile. Called you a buzzkill. Of course you give in. And it's a good time, smoking something your lungs won't thank you for with someone who shouldn't be there at a time you should definitely be asleep instead of getting to know some carcinogens and half-hearted conversation. Alcohol was that friend who pretended to need you but took a fifty from your wallet when you finally drifted off and slipped out the door with no explanation. Alcohol gave you a good time and then fucked you over just in time for you to wake up.

It hurt to wake up on a bus with a hangover and the man you loved in the bunk across from you, knowing that he most definitely was not dreaming of you and you will most definitely not be the first thought he has when he wakes up and he most definitely will cut you off while you're talking to him because his girlfriend is calling. The day after burned for Mike. It burned a hole in his head and his heart; it dropped him from heights too meager to kill him, but just tall enough to break every bone that made contact with the ground. Tony could see Mike's skin bubbling at the center of his chest. He could see through his throat to the water trapped in his windpipe. He could see Mike trying not to drown. He considered it a personal problem.

The day after hurt Mike's head and heart.

The next one, his head was fine.


End file.
